BBCCO / Lockhart at Queen Elizabeth Hall

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Four-letter words set to music; a slab called Ecstatic Orange; a Pet Shop Boys song: music that wears no collar and tie

Fans of the BBC Concert Orchestra who like to lilt to The Merry Widow
were absent on Monday night. Exstatica, the concert was called, and
it summoned those tickled by the prospect of something transgressive and
extreme. Blunt four-letter words set to music; a slab called Ecstatic
Orange; a Pet Shop Boys song: here was music that doesn’t wear a collar
and tie, and sometimes wears nothing at all. The only conventional concert
piece was Schoenberg’s early monument of romantic writhing, Verklärte
Nacht, delivered in its plumply cushioned version for string orchestra.